In short, all governments are liable to be destroyed
either from within or from without; from without when they have for
their neighbour a state whose policy is contrary to theirs, and indeed
if it has great power the same thing will happen if it is not their
neighbour; of which both the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians are a
proof; for the one, when conquerors everywhere destroyed the
oligarchies; the other the democracies. These are the chief causes of
revolutions and dissensions in governments.
CHAPTER VIII
We are now to consider upon what the preservation of governments in
general and of each state in particular depends; and, in the first
place, it is evident that if we are right in the causes we have
assigned for their destruction, we know also the means of their
preservation; for things contrary produce contraries: but destruction
and preservation are contrary to each other. In well-tempered
governments it requires as much care as anything whatsoever, that
nothing be done contrary to law: and this ought chiefly to be attended
to in matters of small consequence; for an illegality that approaches
insensibly, approaches secretly, as in a family small expenses
continually repeated consume a man's income; for the understanding is
deceived thereby, as by this false argument; if every part is little,
then the whole is little: now, this in one sense is true, in another
is false, for the whole and all the parts together are large, though
made up of small parts.
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